Gurung Saraj

Gurung (exonym; ) or Tamu (endonym; Gurung: ) are an ethnic group indigenous to the hills and mountains of Gandaki Province of Nepal. Gurung people predominantly live around the Annapurna region in Manang, Mustang, Dolpo, Kaski, Lamjung, Gorkha, Parbat and Syangja districts of Nepal. They are one of the main Gurkha tribes.

They are also scattered across India in Sikkim, Assam, Delhi, West Bengal ( Darjeeling area) and other regions with a predominant Nepali diaspora population. They speak the Sino-Tibetan Gurung language and practice Bon religion alongside Tibetan Buddhism and Hinduism.

Gurung caste

The Tibetan societies from which the Gurungs came had no caste system and within themselves. Yet for several centuries the Gurungs and other hill peoples have been mixing with the caste cultures of Aryan and they have been influenced by them in various ways. As a result, Gurung caste system has been fragmented into two parts: the four-caste (''Songhi/ Char-jat'') and sixteen-caste (''Kuhgi/ Sora-jat'') systems. Within there are more than thirty named clans.

Geographical distribution

At the time of the 2011 Nepal census, 522,641 people (2.0% of the population of Nepal) identified as Gurung. The frequency of the Gurung people was higher than national average in the following districts: Manang (52.4%), Lamjung (31.3%), Mustang (21.4%), Gorkha (16.7%), Kaski (16.6%), Tanahun (11.5%), Syangja (9.0%), Dolpa (7.1%), Chitwan (6.8%), Dhading (5.5%), Sankhuwasabha (5.4%), Taplejung (4.6%), Parbat (3.7%), Rasuwa (3.1%), Tehrathum (2.9%), Ilam (2.9%), Kathmandu (2.6%), Nawalparasi (2.4%) and Rupandehi (2.0%).

Religion

The Gurung Dharma include Bon Lam (Lama), Ghyabri (Ghyabring) and Pachyu (Paju). Lamas perform Buddhist rituals as needed, such as in birth, funeral, other family rituals (such as in Domang, Tharchang) and in Lhosar. Lamas perform Buddhist ceremonies primarily in Manang, Mustang, and elsewhere. Some Gurung villages have kept remnants of a pre-Buddhist form of the ‘Bon' religion, which flourished over two thousand years ago across much of Tibet and Western China. They've also kept aspects of an even older shamanic belief system that served as a counter to the Bon religion.''Macfarlane, A. 1976. Resources and Population: A Study of the Gurungs of Nepa1. New York, and Melbourne: Cambridge University Press Cambridge, London''.

See also

* Gurung language
* Gurung (surname), a surname of many Gurung people

References

Further reading

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External links

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Buddhist communities of Nepal
Ethnic groups in Nepal
Ethnic groups in Northeast India
Ethnic groups in South Asia
Gurkhas
Indigenous peoples of Nepal
Social groups of Nepal
Buddhist communities of India